Airlines under fire for making large passengers buy two tickets

Associated Press ^ | 6-19-02 | DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer

[Oldeconomybuyer]

DALLAS (AP) --

[Atsilvquodi]

ping

[Diddle E. Squat]

All it will take is one typo for this to get really ugly.

SW Airlines requires "phat" passengers to buy second ticket.

[Terry Kent]

FAT TASK CORPS FILES LARGE FLIGHT SUIT
Well, the obese are sure not smiling.
Airlines will charge them more for flying.
Skinny people don’t pay less!
Tall people cannot compress!
It’s a case of spatial profiling!!

[Boonie Rat]

Southwest said its double-ticket policy on obese passengers was prompted by complaints from other travelers

I've been on a full flight, in the window seat of a three seat side, in 95 degree weather, sitting on a runway for 45 minutes with a 450 lb'er in the middle seat, it isn't pleasant. Good for Southwest!

Boonie Rat

MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Been there, done that and it ain't pretty!

[sakic]

I was once in a middle seat between a 300 pound man and a 300 pound woman. 4 hours of hell. When the plane landed and we all stood up the two tubs of lard started talking to each other.

The bastards arranged the seating on purpose for their own comfort and ruined my trip. If I had done what I was thinking I would be typing this from a prison cell. I also didn't want to be the filling in a lard sandwich.

[KissOfTheSith]

>Airlines under fire for making large passengers buy two tickets

Well, if fat people have have to pay two fares, does this mean that if I fly with Kate Moss and she squeezes into my seat that we need only pay one fare?!

-- KotS

[tracer]

"Ticket agents can "make a judgment call" and ask an obese person whether he or she usually takes up more than one seat..."

I wonder whether said "agents" will enjoy the "judgment calls" that awaits them as co-defendants in a legal action based largely on the vagueness of the basis of their determinations as to what constitutes "taking up more than one seat"....

[sakic]

If those eyes were any wider apart they'd be in her ears.

[rwfromkansas]

Well, sounds good to me. But, I also have to say, make the seats wider.....it is very uncomfortable in those tiny seats. If they did that they would be the most popular airline and get more money, but no airline seems to get that.....

[sakic]

Less seats = Less revenue

[thucydides]

When the spokespeople for the lardasses (er, excuse me, I should have said gravitationally challenged) say the airlines should provide larger seats, what they are really saying is they should raise the price of tickets for everybody. Like all "activists," they ignore the tradeoffs. There is no free lunch. Now I wouldn't mind paying 20% more for a 20% bigger seat, but a lot of people would, or could not afford it. Why should others bear the expense of the lardasses? No, asking them to pay for two seats concentrates the cost just where it belongs - on "persons of avoirdupois."

[wku man]

"It's just discriminatory and it's mean-spirited," said Morgan Downey, executive director of the American Obesity Association. "This is singling out a group that's been very heavily stigmatized rather than making some accommodations in their cabins."

Hey Larda**, here's an idea...why not LOSE SOME WEIGHT!?! Sheesh...

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[KissOfTheSith]

>If those eyes were any wider apart they'd be in her ears.

Eyes?! Oh, yes, now that you mention it, she does have eyes... [grins] And, now that I look at them, they do seem to be wide-set. I wonder if that means anything...

-- KotS

[Gorzaloon]

I've been on a full flight, in the window seat of a three seat side, in 95 degree weather, sitting on a runway for 45 minutes with a 450 lb'er in the middle seat, it isn't pleasant. Good for Southwest!

I was in some sardine can like an MD80 for six hours. Next to me was an enormous person. When we started, I was burning up, because a Standard Passenger is, what, 185#. We both paid the same for the ticket. The turbines do not care if a pound is meat, metal, or underwear; Each pound costs the same to fly.

After a few hours, however, I found myself feeling sorry for this person. Granted, I had a miserable flight, with parts of a passenger spilling over onto me and my seat, but one can be assured this person was having a far more miserable time than I was, in the kindergarten seats the airline had packed in.

And in compassion, I realized that in a few hours I would be off the plane:

Scold: "Mr.Churchill, you are DRUNK!"

Sir Winston: "Yes, madame, and you are UGLY. Tomorrow I shall be sober."

Likewise, soon, I would be uncrowded; My seatmate was going where? Into the back of a too-small cab?

Hey, I am not a centerfold anymore, either, so....

[Tom Bombadil]

Advocates for the obese are outraged.

Here's the violin. You consume it, you pay for it. I suppose they aren't outraged when the obese spill over onto the person next to them.

[AzSteven]

6'2", 225 pounds, and by the new "standards" from our concerned health industry, now classified as obese.

I gotta say that the 18" seat is not exactly roomy, and I think I am not exactly monstrous in size. They probably do need to think about making the seats a little bigger.

[sakic]

I guess I'd be willing to overlook the eyes.

[martin_fierro]

"Upon hearing the news, Teddy Kennedy and Jerrold Nadler were NOT happy."